Wednesday, August 30, 2006

This survey is better than moats:

1. One book that changed your life: Richard Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope
2. One book you’ve read more than once: Don Delillo's White Noise
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Raft Building
4. One book that made you giddy: Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
5. One book that wracked you with sobs: Wilson Rawls's Where the Red Fern Grows
6. One book that you wish had been written: My Life as a Hermit on a Remote Arctic Island, by Joseph Stalin.
7. One book you wish had never been written: Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf
8. One book you’re currently reading: Chuck Dickens's Hard Times
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
10. Now tag four bloggers: Kryce, Charles, Dasmeshpreet, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Monday, August 28, 2006

Sundays are suited for wandering. Yesterday, doing just that, I saw what appeared to be a black plastic bag flapping in the wind. This struck me as odd, since it was a calmish day, so I crossed the street to look closer. What I found was a crow with its head and right wing wedged between the pickets of a white fence. Beak open, breathing heavily, it looked tired from the thrashing. This was just as well because it didn’t struggle much when I pulled it out. Wary of the Hitchcock-like crowd of crows gathering on the telephone line above my head, I dropped it quickly towards the grass. Surprisingly, it flew. It drifted near the ground for the first twenty feet, dripping clear liquid on the pavement, but it slowly gained altitude, and eventually found a tree at the end of the street, friends in tow. I can’t remember ever having held a live bird in my hands; it was softer than I would have expected. I probably looked like a cheesy magician, the way I released it. But, since the circumstance was not contrived, the feeling was much different.

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Saturday, August 26, 2006

I make most of my friends in the backyard:
Sandra
Stanislav
Squirmy
Elron

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Saturday, August 19, 2006

Why would you read a 5-page article (7 if you count the 2 [2!] pages of footnotes) that is ostensibly about tennis? You might read said article because it was written by David Foster Wallace (author of Infinite Jest, Oblivion: Stories, and Consider the Lobster), of all people. I tend to look up a lot of words when reading--a 3-click process, thanks to Firefox/dictionary.com. I also tend to read a lot of sports writing. I don't, however, tend to look up a lot of words while reading sports writing. Yet somehow Wallace wrangled me into looking up "dolorous," "annealed," and "mesomorph" while reading his article on Roger Federer--who, btw, is apparently a metaphysical anomaly. Even better, Wallace's seriously eccentric writing is not at all contrived; his brilliant convolutedness is all natural, and hence refreshing.

More importantly, perhaps, he is unapologetic about his subject matter. He and I are in the same camp in that we think sports and basic, swamp-level popular culture in general are suitable areas for cultural, semiotic, and even philosophical investigation. This commonality, admittedly, may have biased me in favour of said article. The main point, if you haven't drifted off yet--I know I have--is that the article is good because, among and subordinate to other things, it is a healthy "FU!" to those self-described intellectuals who look down upon sports (etc.) and the "fanboydom" that they inspire.

Another reason to support shameless popular entertainment: Roxanne's cousin is in Snakes on a Plane, and John Tucker Must Die. It probably seems like I'm making that up, but I'm not. (To expand on Chuck's colour-coding scheme: green means it's the truth.)

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Tuesday, August 15, 2006

On the way out to Montreal, via Vancouver, we spent a couple of days in 100 Mile, mostly hanging out with the Pettman clan, Axel, and Chuck. It was like a meeting of all the annoying people from the comments section, except Dasha. Not surprisingly, toilet humour ensued. Surprisingly, Roxanne was a main contributor. To paraphrase Mikara: “we never knew she had such a potty mouth.” Ava, Kryce & Mikara’s 9-month old girl, was deathly afraid of me, probably because of my beard. Her lip would quiver anytime I came within 3 feet of her, and then she would cry. Now, I’ve never been one to quit something just because it made small children cry—much to the detriment of my career as a birthday party clown—so I persisted in trying to make friends with her. Happily, after 2 days of facial contortions and spastic arm waving, she overcame her pre-toddler bitterness and warmed up to me. The proof of this is that she fell asleep for about 20 minutes while I was holding her. Chalk one up for silliness.

The first few days in Montreal we mostly just hung out and did city things, like going to museums and watching racoons scamper down the sidewalk. Well, that second one isn’t really a city thing, but it did happen. The Brian Jungen exhibit at the Musée d’Art Contemporain was definitely the highlight for me. I also saw some Jeff Wall photos at a few different places, always good. Also, Montreal has seriously good food, especially this one Lebanese place we went to. I’ve officially converted to being pro-falafel.

July 28th marked 1 year that Roxanne and I have been together. It was nice to be in a romantic city for that (I need all the help I can get). It seems like it has been longer than 1 year, in a good way. This is probably because it has been the best and most transformative year of my life, unless you count the year between birth and the age of one, which saw not only the greatest growth in my maturity, but also the peak of my maturity. Seriously though, this is a good thing. Thanks Roxanne.

A few nights before the wedding I went go-carting—or, as it’s called in Quebec: “le petit auto de vroom.” For various reasons a full-scale bachelor party was not in order, so a trip to the bar, and then the go-cart track (not in that order, unfortunately) was the substitute. Go-carting is ridiculously fun. They closed the track for the 11 of us, and there was even a qualification round for pole position. More important than winning, of course, was causing other people to lose. Despite the fact that it was made abundantly clear that all contact was illegal, there were many, many crashes. At the end of the race a statistical printout was provided, which showed that most of the cars reached speeds near or above 39 mph. That’s pretty fast when you are 1 inch off the ground. I was involved in 3 crashes, none of which were my fault, naturally. One sent me through a tire wall, but the best came at the end of a straightaway, when I turned a corner and promptly smacked into a 4-car pileup at 30 mph. An appropriate amount of semi-santioned violence is sometimes a healthy thing.

Laws related to the sale of alcohol are a bit more lax in Quebec, and by “a bit more lax” I mean you can buy a 1.18L bottle of 10% alcohol beer at any corner store for $4.40. Naturally, that was exactly what we did, mostly for the novelty. It had a bad fruity taste to it, so it was a good thing I didn’t have to drink a whole bottle myself. Roxanne, Kelly’s friend Chantal, and Kelly’s boyfriend were accomplices (Kelly was at the wedding rehearsal). Chantal is really cool. She is the brains behind/co-owner of a gelato shop, lives in an apartment with a severely warped strairway, and is a culinary genius in general. All of that is in addition to being the evil half of a set of twins. Kelly’s new beau is alright too. He beat us at every card/board game we played while we were staying at my dad’s cottage on Brome Lake, and, of course, proficiency at boardgames is all that really matters. Also, the previous week, he accepted a $400 bet from his tree-planting foreman to drink the sweat out of the socks of all 12 people on his crew. I managed to get 4 of those dollars, in pennies, out of him by betting him that I could hold my breath across the Champlain Bridge, which is about Second Narrows-length. It took 1:55, and several million brain cells, but I’ll do anything for $4 in pennies. Anything.

Here are some more pictures
And here are some more more pictures

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Thursday, August 10, 2006

Hello to all of you who are probably sick of looking at pictures of chocolate chip cookies. The wedding went swimmingly, and the swimming went … weddingly? Anyway, it was a success: cake was had by all, wine flowed like liquid, and my older sister is now Leah Binette. Conflagrations Leah and Sam!

The wedding was held in The Church of St. Matthias, which is the same church my Grandma Kyra and Grandpa Wally were married in, in 1955. Coincidence? No, it was planned that way. It was sort of like a family reunion since I saw all 8 members of my extended family. That’s right, eight. Did I mention we’re not Roman Catholic? More trivia: Sam is only the second male relative of mine whose name is not David. Three of the five male members of my extended family are named David. That’s right, 60%. Did I mention we’re not Roman Creative?

The ceremony went off without a hitch, meaning, they were successfully hitched. Actually, there was one snafu: one guy who had a short speaking role of some kind was delayed and missed the whole wedding. The reason he was delayed was that roads were closed and traffic diverted because it was the day of the “Outgames” marathon. That’s to be expected though; weddings have been missed because of “Outgames” marathons since … well, actually, I guess this was the first time.

The reception was pretty fancy schmancy. Luckily, I had my powers of dapper set to maximum, so I didn’t feel out of place. It is good that I was not anxious, because I gave a 5-minute-ish toast to Leah, in French, and I haven’t been fluent in French since about 1995. Fortunately, Sam’s brother Alex helped me proofread it, so it went well. Everyone laughed at the right times, and I managed not to slur any words or use any slurs. Even the band—who were friends of the groom—rocked pretty hard. Appropriately, their last song was “Standing on the verge of getting it on.” What is a wedding without Funkadelic? George Clinton is my life coach.

more photos here

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